Research on Humanities and Social Sciences ISSN 2222-1719 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2863 (Online) Vol.3, No.3, 2013
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anxiety (von der Embse, 2008). However a plethora of researches are contradictory to this finding. Putwain found socio-economic status as a strong predictor of test anxiety in a large sample of students drawn from UK (Putwain, 2007). This contradiction might be due to non-uniformity of this research sample (higher socio economic class = 48, middle socio economic class = 137, low socio economic class = 15). It seems that sample was not representative in case of economic class. One of the reasons of this non-uniformity of sample might be a special class of our society which seeks admission in GCU Lahore. Most of the students are from higher class or middle class and less students are from lower class. Last hypothesis says that there will be a significant correlation among test anxiety and low achievers and high achievers. The results of Bivariate Correlation showed that there is a significant relation of test anxiety and high achievers and low achievers. A good number of recent researches support my findings. Ruhi Khalid and Syeda Salma Hassan found that high achievers experience lower levels of test anxiety and low achievers experience high levels of test anxiety (Ruhi Khalid & Salma Hassan, 2009). Gaudry and Spielberger also came out with the same results. They say that there is a correlation between low performance and high level of test anxiety. There seems to be a correlation between increased test anxiety and lower performance (Gaudry & Spielberger, 1971). Mwamwenda’s findings also support these results. He carried out his research on students of South African University. He concluded that there is no significant effect of preparation of a test on level of anxiety of an individual. Performance of highly anxious students was poor and less anxious students show good performance (Mwamwenda, 1994). Hurren has also investigated the same. He says that individuals who score high on test anxiety scales, scores low on examinations and vice versa (Hurren, 2006). However, there are also some contradictory findings as well. Rouxel explored that test anxiety has no significant effect on level of achievement of a student. (Rouxel, 2000). Another research claims that there is a weak relation of test anxiety and students’ grades (Horwitz, 1986). Keeping in view all these complex and controversial findings of different researchers and psychologists, we need more exploration in the field of test anxiety. We need to know actual cause of test anxiety and the contribution of other factors like gender, age and other study habits in it, so that we may help students to cope their test anxiety. 8. Conclusion It is concluded that Test anxiety is one of the major problems among students and it is also thought to be one of the biggest hurdles in achieving good grades. Test anxiety is the focus of many researchers, who worked a lot in this field. The results of this study discussed that students of pure science and social science differ significantly in term of their level of test anxiety. There are significant gender differences in test anxiety level. Moreover, Study habits like daily study hours and study duration in exams have no relation with test anxiety. Sleep duration during exams and normal sleep cycle have a significant relation with test anxiety. Lastly, Socio-economic status of students has no relationship with of test anxiety. 9. Limitations Some limitations did not permit the investigation of many aspects that could be of great value. x x x x
The sample size was comparatively small (N = 200). Size of sample for some subjects was too small to be representative like for Islamic Studies n = 13 and for Persian n = 12. Reason for this small size was less number of students in these subjects. The sample was restricted to the students of GCU only. So it is not possible to generalize these findings. The data may be collected from the whole country for the sake of generalize the results. As all data is from GCU Lahore, and only a specific socio-economic class is able to seek admission in GCU Lahore. Most of the students belong to higher class and middle class. Results may differ if we conduct this test on lower socio-economic class. A reason for no significant result in study habits and test anxiety may be culture of GCU Lahore. Here students have to study whole year on regular basis due to semester system and due to assessment of students after regular intervals.
10. Suggestions x x
An increment in sample size will be helpful to rule out many limitations. Collection of data from different universities and colleges will help to generalize the findings.
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